


Rebels

by Liberte_Egalite_Broadway



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Canon Queer Character of Color, Canon Queer Relationship, Carlos and Cecil are Dorks, Carlos is a Good Boyfriend, Cecil Goes Outside Night Vale, Cecil Is a Good Boyfriend, Cecilos Fluff, Character Study, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Lots of Classic Lit references by Tamika Flynn, Lots of deep emotions, Lots of self-reflecton, M/M, Night Vale: Desert Queertopia, Road Trips, Romantic Fluff, Typical Night Vale Weirdness, all hail the glow cloud
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-02
Updated: 2018-06-14
Packaged: 2019-05-13 07:29:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 11,921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14744537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Liberte_Egalite_Broadway/pseuds/Liberte_Egalite_Broadway
Summary: Tamika Flynn hosts the Night Vale Community Radio while Cecil is away for the weekend. In a place outside of Night Vale (and possibly outside of time itself), one car, two boyfriends, and years of the past still left to be unravelled traverse an infinite road in search of a private rebellion. For Night Vale, this means a lot of education on classic literature. For Cecil and Carlos, this means discovery of themselves as individuals and together.Or: Cecil and Carlos go on a road trip so they can eat wheat and wheat by-products.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hey everyone! I haven't finished Welcome to Night Vale yet, so please no spoilers. I love Cecilos so much. As a queer person it makes me so happy to see positive and healthy representation, especially on this scale and with such incredible actors as Cecil Baldwin and Dylan Marron. So I decided to just go for it and write this fic, since I couldn't get it out of my head. I'm currently in the nineties episode-wise. 
> 
> Please no spoilers in the comments. Do leave comments, though! This story takes place after "Condos" but before "Old Oak Doors", so Cecil and Carlos are dating but haven't yet been separated by the alternate desert world. 
> 
> Normally I don't like writing in present tense third person, but here I feel like it works for a character study. To everything my editor has taught me - I'm sorry. 
> 
> Last but not least: ALL HAIL THE MIGHTY GLOW CLOUD.

They're curled up on the couch watching a new nature documentary when Cecil says it. 

"Do you know what I miss?" 

Carlos glances at him, wondering if this is going to be important enough to pause the show for. Not that he would mind - this particular documentary was Cecil's choice, and they've had the "I am a scientist not a zoologist" conversation enough times that he decided to just go with it. A scientist has to pursue other branches of knowledge than his own. But still. 

"What do you miss?" he asks, compromising by turning the volume down.

Cecil gives a little sad sigh. "I don't want to say it." 

"Why?" 

"The city council won't like it..." Cecil glances around like the City Council is hiding underneath the side table they bought last month. Considering that this is Night Vale, Carlos wouldn't honestly be surprised if they were. Or if they had morphed into the side table for the distinct purpose of spying on them. Anything's possible. The last time Carlos checked, though, the poorly hidden camera from a vague yet menacing government agency was in the microwave. So they should be safe here.

"What are you talking about?" 

Cecil props his chin on Carlos' collarbone, looks up at him. "It may be illegal." 

He hits pause. "You want to do something illegal?" 

"I..." Cecil winces in shame and whispers with that voice of his, " _I miss bread._ " 

Carlos blinks. "Bread?" 

Cecil nods. "Breaad. And pastries, those too. But not the kind that have imaginary spiders on them for decoration. The real kind. The... flaky, kind." 

"Huh." Carlos runs his fingers through Cecil's hair. "You know, we have bread in the kitchen. Or I can drive out and get you pastries if you want." He doesn't mention that he's been driving around all day doing science. The house that doesn't exist, even though it seems like it exists, like it's just right there when you look at it, and it's between two other identical houses, so it would make more sense for it to be there than not, but it does not exist, is not going to investigate itself. He also doesn't mention that Cecil wrapped up his broadcast at six and then hung around writing fanfiction until Carlos came back, and so is obviously in much better shape for late-night pastry runs.

"No, no, I don't want you to go out this late," says Cecil with his voice like melting chocolate. "But that's not what I mean. Because the bread we have... well, it is gluten free. And all of the pastries in Night Vale are gluten free. And everywhere that we go to eat and every grocery store that exists, and even the grocery stores that  _don't_  exist, the ones you forget as soon as you leave them with your hands full of shopping bags? All of them are  _gluten free._  I..." Cecil whispers so none of the hidden cameras in the doorknobs will hear him. " _I miss wheat and wheat by-products, okay Carlos?_ " 

Carlos stares. Then he laughs. Cecil pulls away with his face still in his hands. 

"It's not funny! I am a terrible Night Vale citizen, Carlos, terrible. And if the City Council hears me say this I will disappear and never be heard from again, and then who's going to take care of Khoshekh? And -"

"Cecil," says Carlos through laughter. "Cecil. Stop, okay?" He forces himself to stop laughing and continues, "Cecil, it's okay. I kind of miss wheat too. I mean, everyone probably does." He considers. "I could do a study on that." 

"But that doesn't  _help_ ," says Cecil. "I've still thought it, and I am still deeply ashamed, and yet I still want wheat and wheat by-products. I am a terrible person." 

"No you're not." 

"Yes I am."

 _This man will be the death of me._ " _No_ , you're not." Carlos pulls Cecil's hands away from his face and holds them, running his thumbs over the snaking purple tattoos. "It is very difficult to always obey a City Council and a secret police and a vague yet menacing government agency. It is especially difficult when the council and the police and the agency are putting in laws that make everyone change their lifestyle. People have habits and they're bad at breaking them. It was scientifically proven." 

Cecil nods.

"All that said, now I want to eat wheat bread and it's your fault for bringing it up." 

"It is not."

"I mean it  _kind of_ is."

Cecil shakes his head and curls up against Carlos again. "Well, there's no wheat bread around here anyway, sooo." 

Carlos thinks, resuming the documentary but not watching it, because now he is thinking. Love, he has learned, is like science. A problem arises and sometimes there are several ways you can go about trying to solve it. But in the end you pick a way and you consider solutions. In science, you do it to make a discovery that will hopefully benefit the world and bring about knowledge and all that. In love, you do it so you can bring a smile back to the other person's face. So Carlos considers for a moment, then pauses the documentary again.

"Cecil."

"Yes?"

“Since we can't eat wheat or wheat by-products in Night Vale, what if we... left Night Vale for a little while?”

Cecil sits up again. “What?”

“Think about it,” Carlos presses. “We know there's something outside this desert right? It is where I came from. Beyond the seeming vastness of the incomprehensibly paranormal place we call home, there is the rest of America, and there people can legally eat wheat and wheat by-products. So if we left this one place, this one tiny square of reality that we exist in in the midst of the larger fabric of the universe, we can break this place's law. We can do that because, scientifically speaking, we're no longer in this place. Right?”

“But Carlos, we are still Night Vale citizens – or at least I am,” says Cecil quickly. “I guess technically you aren't yet. Can we do that in good conscience? I mean, what if the secret police found out?”

Carlos smiles. In all the days before coming to this strange city in the middle of the desert, he had never imagined a future for himself like this. He imagined conducting scientific explorations and discoveries and maybe doing that in a place full of mysteries. But he hadn't quite imagined that place of mysteries being a place where everyone was legally required to go gluten free, and where he had to scratch out data tables with an ink-dipped toothpick due to a ban on pens.

And of course he hadn't imagined Cecil. Cecil is something beyond the limits of even his seemingly limitless mind.

“I do not know. But I _do_ know that the secret police never leave Night Vale, so them finding out is not very likely.” Carlos leans his face against the top of Cecil's head. “But if you would rather stay here and finish this documentary over the weekend, we can do that too. I actually don't hate it as much as I thought I would.”

“Hmm.” Cecil snatches the remote and turns the documentary back on. They sit in silence for a while as Carlos goes back to playing with his boyfriend's hair. On screen, the majestic crested penguin group (or whatever species it is – Carlos thinks it's a majestic crested) dives one by one into the ocean at a remarkable proximity to the underwater camera. The narrator seems to be having trouble pronouncing the word “penguin”. Carlos can hear Cecil breathing and there's something very calming about that basic testimony to his existence. His heart stutters a little as Cecil glances up at him with a smile, as if trying to remind him, _yes, he loves you too, and yes, he is actually yours._

“FINE!” says Cecil loudly and so unexpectedly that Carlos falls off the couch. “Oh my. Carlos, are you okay?”

“What was that for!?” Carlos asks as he gets up.

“What do you mean? I was saying fine to your idea!”

“But you said it so _loudly_.”

“I was expressing my excitement. A weekend away from our jobs and our hometown and the constrictions of bans on wheat and wheat by-products sounds absolutely lovely. So I was letting you know that by the excitement in my tone.”

Carlos shakes his head as he gets settled on the couch again. “You're too much.”

“So how far away is the nearest town where we can eat wheat and wheat by-products without fear of being recognized by one of the helicopters of the sheriff's secret police?”

“...good question.”

  
  


In the end they decide not to look for a destination. They'll take the road east and drive until they're past the city limits and the laws and everyone who knows them.

“I don't think I've left Night Vale since I went to Europe,” says Cecil, dropping a green and gold spotted duffel bag into the trunk.

“And when was that?”

Cecil stops and looks up at the sky, as if thinking. There is a very long pause. Finally he says, “So anyway, do you want to drive or should I?”

“I can. Who's covering your show while we're gone?”

“Actually it's a funny story,” says Cecil, sliding in on the passenger seat. “I had to request time off first from Station Management, so I wrote a twenty-five hundred word essay, as is standard practice. Then a note came out from under the door telling me that if I missed a day of work they would terminate my show - and maybe, my life, depending on how long I was gone.”

“Oh. So are you not supposed to be -”

“Well luckily, I explained that I was taking time off so I could go on a trip with my boyfriend – obviously, I didn't mention that we were going on a trip to engage in illegal activities - and then they gave me another note saying in that case it was okay, if I grovelled outside their door for two hours.” Cecil smiles. “I was so happy. I asked Intern Dina to cover the show while I was gone, but she said she was too busy. So I called Tamika Flynn and asked her if she'd like to give the town some book summaries while I was away for the weekend – since everyone except her and her militia is too afraid to actually read.”

Carlos glances doubtfully as he flicks the key. “You left your show to a thirteen year old?”

“A college-reading level thirteen year old,” Cecil corrects. “Which is quite different. Is your team going to need you for the house that doesn't exist research?”

“No, they told me to go ahead.”

“How long did you have to grovel?”

Carlos grins as they head down the road. The thought crosses his mind that a few months ago, he might not have known if Cecil was joking or not. Now he can tell that he is one hundred percent serious, and just being able to recognize that says, to his mind at least, a lot about their relationship.

It occurs to him that in this town full of scientific mysteries and conspiracies and hooded figures, Cecil has become the only constant in his life, and that is comforting. Citizens may drop down dead for unknown reasons and buildings might turn up in different locations than the day before, but they'll always have each other and that's what really matters.

“Not as long as you did,” he says, smiling over at Cecil, who instantly blushes.

“ _Stop being so perfect!_ ”

Carlos just laughs.

  
  


_Tamika Flynn: ...so that's why “The Last Samurai” declined in popularity. And now, the news._

_Cecil asked me to remind all of you that elections for the next town sheriff are only ten months away. He also asked me to remind you that our current sheriff, who is still head of the Sheriff's secret police, is running again. Remember to vote correctly. If you don't, you'll be dragged away to the abandoned mine shaft outside of town where people who vote incorrectly are taken to disappear. Cecil didn't ask me to say this, but I need to remind all of you that the only channel that these facilities have is HBO. This means you'll be watching a lot of Game of Thrones, and people, you do_ not want to do that. _I have read George R.R. Martin's_ “A Song of Ice and Fire” _cover to cover twelve times. I have read the rest of the series ten times. The show is good, but the book is so much better, even if there are some plot holes and even if it is a little bit ripped off from J.R.R. Tolkien's_ “The Lord of the Rings” _. Here is a word of advice: the book is_ always _better than the show. So if you want the Game of Thrones experience, you read the books. Actually, I think I'll give you a summary of the books right now. All of them. Vote the right way if you don't want to see what I'm about to tell you played out live on the horror that is consumerism TV._


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More driving from Night Vale's favorite couple and some self reflection from a certain radio host. Featuring invisible lizards, infinite roads, and something that is not the weather. Plus, a Pride and Prejudice summary from Tamika Flynn, and horoscopes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoever is in the driver's seat holds the POV.

They've been driving for three hours and Carlos has no idea where they are.

He can't see Night Vale in the rearview mirror anymore – it has been swallowed by the vast merging of depth and width and many tons of sand that is the desert. He can't remember what desert Night Vale is actually situated in. Every time he thinks that he remembers, it escapes his memory, like trying to grab an eel only to have it wriggle out of reach. Not that he has much experience with eels, since he is a scientist, not a zoologist.

“Cecil, have you figured out where we are yet?” asks Carlos, glancing over at his boyfriend. For the past twenty minutes Cecil has been trying to use Carlos' phone as a GPS, to limited success.

“No...” says Cecil, tapping the screen again. “Wait, wait, I have something! Wait, no, nope.” He swivels the phone around so Carlos can look at the screen. “It says 'results inconclusive'. That's strange. My phone never does that.”

“We'll have to just keep going straight,” Carlos sighs. “I just noticed something. There's no wind out here. It's like we're the only things moving in this entire desert. Like we're alone in the whole world, almost, for miles and miles around -”

“CARLOS STOP THE CAR!”

Carlos is broken from his philosophical waxing and slams his foot hard on the brake. Cecil unbuckles as soon as the motion is halted and jumps out the passenger door. “Cecil, what are you doing?” Carlos shouts out of the open door, his heart racing.

Cecil comes back into the car. “There was a lizard trying to cross the road. Didn't you see it?”

Carlos did not see it and has no idea how Cecil did, since lizards tend to be fairly small. “No?”

“It was very large,” says Cecil with his voice like honey. “Look, there it is! Oh no, it just turned invisible. There's another one! They're everywhere.”

“But didn't you just say that they're invisible -”

“They're not invisible. They _turn_ invisible right after you look at them. Maybe I should drive for a while if you can't see them.”

  


_Tamika: A woman walks down a garden path with an older woman at her side. They are fighting, though for the sake of the five women and one man watching them from the window of the house behind them, they're pretending not to be fighting. They are fighting over a man. Not because they both love him, because only the young woman loves him. The old woman wants the man to marry her daughter, and says that the union has been planned since their infancy. Her daughter is a kind woman but the man does not love her. He loves the first woman, even though they have fought frequently pretending they are not fighting. Like the two women are doing now._

_The old woman demands that the young woman never be engaged to the man, who is her nephew. The young woman is insulted by various things that have been said during the conversation, and she refuses to listen to anything further. She says she will not make this promise. The old woman storms off, offended._

_This was an excerpt from Jane Austen's_ “Pride and Prejudice”, _a book that has become a classic. I'd say it is the best romance novel ever written. I asked Cecil if he had read it, and he said, “Tamika, I am a good Night Vale citizen, and the City Council has encouraged me to set the example by not reading books. Books are dangerous.” I told Cecil that if he wanted to know about romance he had to read_ “Pride and Prejudice” _. But when I said romance he started crying about Carlos. So I just moved on._

_I wonder why Cecil and Carlos had to leave town. Cecil said they just wanted a weekend away. But you never know someone's true motives, do you? Next, we'll be talking about the mystery genre._

_This has been traffic._

  


Carlos has his eyes closed, sitting in the passenger seat with his window open. The wind of the rushing car stirs his perfect, perfect hair. Cecil has to remind himself several times to keep his eyes on the road so he doesn't run over any of the lizards that Carlos can't see for some reason.

They're so far out of Night Vale by now that they can't listen to Tamika's broadcast anymore. Now the radio is the normal kind, the kind that plays annoying music and talks about things that probably no one cares about. Cecil isn't sure what town this is being broadcast from. The road they are on just goes on straight ahead without any branches or side roads. He begins to wonder if this road will go on forever, just snaking on into a desert that looks just like their own desert, that looks just like the one they just came from, that looks just like the one they are going towards now.

In the back of his mind the thought flickers that Carlos must have once come down this road while on his way into Night Vale for the first time. Unless he came from another direction. And then it occurs to him that Carlos is not of Night Vale and that he is of a world that is not scientifically fascinating, a world that is strange, one that Cecil is not a part of. Does he ever miss it? What would it be like, to live in a place where there is no Glow Cloud, or where people actually had the ability to vote for themselves? Frankly, it sounded dangerous.

 _And now the weather,_ said the monotone voice on the radio that seemed to broadcast from nowhere. _Tonight it will be mild and cloudless. Tuesday will be hot and sunny with scattered thunderstorms until late at night. Those thunderstorms will continue until about five in the morning on Wednesday. -_

“What is this?”

Carlos opens his eyes. “What is what?”

Cecil gestures to the radio. “This. They said they were going to play the weather. But he's still just _talking_.”

“He's giving the weather forecast.”

“No, he isn't.”

Carlos smiles. “Okay, well Cecil, outside of Night Vale the weather is -”

“This man is operating his show under false pretenses,” says Cecil, gripping the steering wheel in annoyance. “He is clearly not a trained radio professional.”

Carlos shrugs, which sends his perfect hair tumbling over his shoulders. “Not everyone can be as perfect at their job as you.”

Cecil turns away with his face burning.

The untrained voice of the man who is clearly not a radio professional drones on, talking of scattered thunderstorms and light rain showers and other strange events that usually are not standard weather unless someone summons it. The last time they had a thunderstorm in Night Vale was when a gate to another world of dark magic broke open, and they had to stay inside for days, since the rain was actually blood and the lightning struck randomly every five seconds. He and Carlos took shelter in the basement of Carlos' lab and Carlos did experiments to find out scientific things that Cecil didn't understand. And the blood rain pelted the windows and the world above while it was just the two of them, and the comfortable comforting silence, and the occasional explosions from the beakers Carlos had set up. It had been very romantic. But that wasn't a scattered thunderstorm, it was a collected one.

 _And now, horoscopes,_ says the untrained voice of the man who is clearly not a radio professional. At least he has this one thing right.

Cecil spares another look at Carlos, who has his phone out the window. He pulls it back in and taps a few times.

“What are you doing?” asks Cecil.

“Science. To calculate if the weather patterns he just predicted are actually correct.” Carlos shifts the phone into one hand and extends the other across the compartment in the middle of the front seats. Cecil takes his right hand off of the steering wheel and feels Carlos' warm fingers tangle through his.

 _Aquarias: you are falling in love more and more rapidly with every passing second,_ says the untrained voice of the man who is clearly not a radio professional, and who is apparently right about at least one thing. _Oh, that's strange. I'm looking down my list, and whoever wrote these horoscopes has apparently made two of them similair._ Which demonstrates how clearly he is not a trained radio professional, because everybody knows that horoscopes are written by the stars, not by people. _Taurus: you are inescapably in love already._

  


_Tamika: Hello again, Night Vale. I hope you enjoyed the weather. This is still Tamika Flynn, still broadcasting to you from Cecil's radio booth, which is still messy with used coffee mugs and a lot of fanfiction I'm not going to read._

_Anyway, here are the horoscopes, which the stars wrote, and obviously were not written by a book-lover handling the show this weekend._

_Pisces: You are the most like Henry Jekyll, from Robert Louis Stevenson's “Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde”_

_Virgo: You are the most like Rachel Lynde from L.M. Montgomery's “Anne of Green Gables”._

_Taurus: You are the most like Romeo from William Shakespeare's “Romeo and Juliet”._

_Cancer: You are the most like Elinor Dashwood from Jane Austen's “Sense and Sensibility”._

_Leo: You are the most like Vin from Brandon Sanderson's “Mistborn” trilogy._

_Aries: You are the most like Nick Carraway from F. Scott Fitzgerald's “The Great Gatsby”._

_Capricorn: You are the most like the Prince from “The Little Prince” by Antoine de Saint-Exupery._

_Saggitarius: You are the most like Irene Adler from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's “Sherlock Holmes” stories._

_Aquarius: You are the most like Juliet from William Shakespeare's “Romeo and Juliet”. Take a lesson from this. Stop delivering soloquilies to me and your interns about how hot your boyfriend is. Love can be deadly._

_Gemini: You are the most like Dorian Gray from Oscar Wilde's “The Picture of Dorian Gray”._

_Libra: You are the most like Jonas from Lois Lowry's “The Giver”._

_Scorpio: You won a free car!_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm a gemini, so I made myself my favorite Classic Lit character. :D
> 
> Also: HAPPY PRIDE MONTH!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sunsets, sunrises, and something on the distance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comic con was AWESOME! Afterwards, I listened to five episodes of Night Vale so I could get to episode 100. I cried. :')

They drive until the sun sets, and Cecil can tell something is wrong because the sun sets at what his watch tells him is a different time than it does in Night Vale. He examines the watch face in the glint of the orange glow through the windows. Time is weird in Night Vale – probably weird everywhere, he imagines – and the past is weird as well. The past is a blur of mixed sentiments and emotions that only sometimes interact. The future is the past to a version of himself that does not exist yet.

“Tell me something about you,” said Carlos on their second date. “That you don't broadcast on your radio channel. Something that not everyone knows.”

And Cecil said, “I don't understand time, and I act like this does not bother me. But it does.”

A few days later Carlos showed up with a bunch of flowers and a little black box with a watch inside. “This is real!” he had said, sounding excited. “The watch, I mean. Not just the flowers. This one doesn't have a gray gelatinous mass inside! Cece – can I call you Cece? - I don't know if there is a scientific breakthrough I could make in the fact that time and clocks do not work in Night Vale. Maybe that is a breakthrough itself. But I do know that, this watch? It's real. It's not from Night Vale, just like me. Plus, I took it apart and then put it back together to make sure that it was real. So now you can understand time! Also, it has a mini compass and is water proof. Also, I love you.”

Carlos had fastened the watch onto Cecil's wrist and beamed. Cecil still hasn't taken it off since, and it turns out that the thing is, in fact, entirely waterproof. Also cat-proof, which he found out when Khoshekh made a grab for it while Cecil was filling the floating cat's food bowl.

And the time here is different than the time of the sunset back home. So they are definetly outside of Night Vale, and not just stuck immoble in the same place a few miles outside of Night Vale like he had been starting to suspect.

“The whole desert looks exactly the same,” says Cecil. “Ughh. This man on the radio is _still_ broadcasting. Where is he even broadcasting from?”

“I don't know...” Carlos squints out the window. “But the sun is too low to see much anyway. If there is a settlement, we'd probably drive right past it.”

“That is true.” Cecil turns on the headlights and they keep driving into the deepening darkness. Carlos stays staring out the window, profile sillhouetted by the last remnants of the dying sun. Hopefully here the sun resurrects every morning after its daily death, like it does in Night Vale. Cecil looks back over at Carlos and is struck once again by how _perfect_ he is. Not just in looks, even though he is undeniably the single most beautiful person on the entire earth, but also in aura. Cecil has always prided himself on being good at sensing people's auras, and Carlos has always felt like home. Even before they started going out, there was just _Something_ , (capital S, as all important Somethings are) that made him feel happy and relaxed every time he saw Carlos. Or thought about him, as he did... a fair bit. Some people might call it fate or soulmates. Cecil isn't sure if he believes in soulmates. As a concept, they are far more abstract than, say, giant tarantulas, or faceless old women secretly living in everyone's homes, or the exact definition of the word “lost”. But it hardly matters either way.

He believes in this. In whatever this is that they have and hopefully always will have, in their desert world of confusion and chaos. He believes in Carlos, and in himself, and in their togetherness.

(He does not believe in mountains, though. Even though that is undeniably a mountainous shape on the horizon. Mountainous shapes do not a mountain make. If they did, the surface of his desk is a mountain of paper.)

The sun is fully dead when Carlos reaches over and lays a warm, dark hand over Cecil's on the steering wheel. “We should stop,” he says. “You look tired.”

Cecil nods and pulls the car over at the side of the road. The desert air outside of the car is warm, but starting to cool off, like a warm room in which a fan has just been summoned. Carlos pulls his lab coat a little closer around himself.

“Do you remember what the weather is supposed to be like tonight?”

“As the weather report was not even a real weather report, no, I do not.” Cecil rounds the car and yanks the trunk open to pull out the blankets he stashed in back. “Carlos, what is this giant basket?”

“Oh, that's food. I thought I should pack some just in case we couldn't find a wheat town.” Carlos joins Cecil and pulls out the basket. “I made salads. I also made dressing. I also made brownies, but sadly, they had to be gluten free.”

They spread out the purple and green striped blankets on the desert earth behind the car and eat the salads by the light of a single battery-operated latern. Cecil had Intern Dina sacrifice fruit to the lantern to charge the battery for him before they left. He wonders vaguely if Dina will still be alive when he gets back. She's a pretty good intern, and finding replacements is getting harder and harder.

Cecil sits deep in thought, gazing into the sputtering blue light of the charged latern. Carlos can always tell when his boyfriend is deep in thought from the way his eyebrows furrow. It's cute.

Carlos dumps the empty plastic containers back into the basket (he'll wash them at some point, maybe) and lays down on the blanket again, gazing up at the night sky. It's different than the one back in Night Vale – back home, as he realizes he can say now. He is not sure when Night Vale started to be home for him, stopped being a research place and started being home, but it is now, and it will stay that way.

The night sky is also different than the one where he lived before Night Vale, though the constellations are all the same. He is beginning to realize that it isn't the sky that changes. It is how one looks at it. Who they look at it with.

 _The sky is cold and dark and so far away._ He said that, didn't he? Once, long ago, in a different place. In what seemed to be a whole different life. _I am not an astronomer. I do not want to be an astronomer. I am a scientist. Or at least, I will be when I finally get this degree._

“The sky is so bright,” says Cecil beside him, pointing up into the endless heavens. “And so close. Like you could just reach out and touch it.”

The sky is so bright, he notes. And it does seem close. The specks of unearthly silver hover just out of reach, but not out of understanding.

“These are like the lights above the Arby's,” suggests Carlos. “We understand these lights.”

“Carlos, these aren't lights. They're stars. There is a difference.”

Carlos puts his head on Cecil's shoulder.

“But yes, we do understand them.”

Silence. The comfortable kind. He wonders vaguely how far they have come and how far they have left to go. He can hear whatever insects call this desert home buzzing through the air and the sand, testifying their existence with vibrations of the air. He can hear the sand shift a little as Cecil adjusts the other blanket over Carlos' shoulder. Everything is so quiet. So peaceful.

“Do you want to drive tomorrow?” Softly.

“You can.” Just as soft. As if they need to keep their voices down so as not to wake up from the dream of life itself.

“Okay.”

More silence.

“I love you.”

“I love you too.”

“Good night, Cecil.”

“Good night, fellow rebel.”

 

_Tamika: Good morning, Night Vale. I know Cecil usually does his broadcasts in the afternoons, or sometimes the evenings, but I have training this evening. My militia is really moving nicely. A couple of people have even graduated from slingshots to blowdarts. Janice Carlsberg is downright deadly with that thing. She also can throw a copy of “For Whom the Bell Tolls” further than any of us. Her father told me he's proud of her. Actually, I have him on the phone right now. Hi, Mr. Carlsberg._

_Steve Carlsberg: Hi, Tamika. Gosh, it's so good to be on air! Say, you're a pretty good radio host. Maybe my brother-in-law – half brother? Step brother? Ugh, I just can't get the terms right – anyway, maybe he'd let you intern for him! Wouldn't that be swell? But gee, he always seems to need new interns. Must be a dangerous job._

_Tamika: It isn't too dangerous for me._ Nothing _is too dangerous for me. I have killed librarians, after all. But that's not why I have you here, Mr. Carlsberg. You said you wanted to tell me about a graph in the sky?_

_Steve: Yeah, yeah it's really bright. I'm amazed no one's seen it before. It's right up there in the night sky! Arrows, and numbers, and variables, like that scientist Cecil has is always going on about. But they're right up there!_

_Tamika: Mr. Carlsberg, have you ever read “A Brief History of Time” by Steven Hawking? I think it would interest you..._

 

Again it is them and the road and the droning voice of the man that Cecil is annoyed by. The silence is a thick wool blanket – heavily, but warm and comfortable. A slight breeze has started outside, stirring the sand and sending it dancing around the car. Carlos decides to take this as a good sign that they are moving, that they are making it somewhere. Before, the world was eerily still. Now it is moving. This signifies a small climate change, which signifies that their two souls in this metal contraption have made an insignificant movement upon the seemingly infinte Earth.

The radio sputters with static suddenly. It is unexpected and Carlos flinches. Cecil quickly turns it off.

“Sorry! I couldn't take that imposter anymore. But it seems like there's nothing else out here.”

“It's fine,” says Carlos, relaxing slightly as Cecil squeezes his hand in a reassuring gesture. Unexpected noises bother him. Cecil understands that. Cecil seems to understand everything about him.

He thinks vaguely of the first time they ever met, and how in that moment his whole life had changed and he hadn't even realized it. “I'm Cecil Palmer,” his not-yet boyfriend had said, and then that had been all that he was – a man who was named Cecil Palmer, not yet his boyfriend. “I host the community radio station. What are you doing in Night Vale?”

“I'm here to investigate,” Carlos had said, getting excited as he pulled the cardboard boxes from his trunk. “This is the most scientifically fascinating community in the United States, and my team and I cannot _wait_ to get to the bottom of some of its mysteries.”

“Oh, that's nice.” Cecil had made a few notes on his hand with an oil pencil. Carlos remembered wondering why he didn't just use a notebook and pen. He also remembered noticing that Cecil was much, much more attractive than a radio host had any right to be. “What field are you in?”

“The best! I'm a _scientist_.” Carlos had smiled. Cecil had blushed, said something about needing to get back to work, and dashed off.

Carlos had thought nothing of it, but then later as he set up the lab, he turned on the purple radio someone brought him as a housewarming gift. Then that recognizable voice, like a bubbling pot of caramel, floated out from the speaker. And Cecil had been talking about him.

_He grinned, and everything about him was perfect, and I fell in love instantly._

Carlos had dropped the beaker he was holding.

He smiles now, thinking about it, and looks over at Cecil, who is asleep again. The screeching sunrise (sunrises screech out here, though Carlos isn't sure why) woke him up, so he made wood carvings rather than go back to sleep. They've talked about this but Cecil never listens.

“Sleep is so you won't feel tired,” Carlos always says.

“I think you're confusing the word 'sleep' with the word 'coffee',” Cecil always retorts.

And because he does make good coffee, and because coffee technically is a stimulant, Carlos never argues. He doubts he'll ever forget the first time Cecil offered to make coffee for him, and then started angrily chanting at the coffee pot in a language Carlos is still fairly sure he made up.

 _So, apparently outside of Night Vale, coffee is made without chanting_ , Cecil had broadcast later that day. _Listeners, I have learned a lot from Carlos in the time since I met him. Some of the things he teaches me... seem a little strange at first. I mean, can you believe that everyone in his hometown believes in mountains? But the coffee thing, that was by far the strangest. Who makes coffee without chanting?!_

In the here, in the now, Cecil's head falls against Carlos' shoulder. Carlos stops the car and grabs a blanket from the back seat to pull over him.

For every fact of the “outside” world that he was able to teach Cecil – and thus, by extension, Night Vale – Night Vale was able to teach him at least a dozen more. Basic things, like exactly how much blood should be drawn to offer to bloodstone circles. Like what it feels like to have someone make you laugh while you get your blood drawn, and then to make them laugh while you draw theirs in your living room. Like why exactly one shouldn't look at hooded figures or think about the dog park.

But there were other lessons, ones that the world he came from couldn't teach him no matter how much he wanted to learn. Such as what it felt like to love without any fear.

He is still in awe of this place every time Cecil reads his texts on the show. Out loud, to a community full of people, _and none of them mind_. This place where he can walk down the street holding Cecil's hand, and the only thing shouted at them is, “Hi guys!” or “How's it going?”

And of course there's Cecil, who is beyond anything from the outside world, this world (whatever it is), or any world Carlos can imagine. Cecil who has a voice like a rainstorm but still cries every time they watch Jaws. Cecil who not only wears stripes with spots, but wears stripes with spots with plaid and sometimes throws paisley in for the heck of it. Cecil who is the voice of Night Vale, delivering news and traffic (and details about their relationship) to an entire town, but sometimes loses all power of speech when Carlos says hi.

He doesn't remember what happened first – falling in love with Cecil, or falling in love with Night Vale. But maybe it was both. The two – the city and the voice – are so linked and so similair. Either way, both are a part of him now. Both are tightly woven into the fabric of this thing, this jumble of objects and pasts and presents and future assumptions, that he perceives as life.

Maybe it is that the city let him fall in love with the man, and the man showed him everything the city could be.

He drums his fingers on the steering wheel the way he does when he's thinking. Cecil is still asleep. The road goes on and on. Carlos turns off the radio so he can hear Cecil's breathing instead. For a moment all is near silence, that silence stirred only briefly. It is an imperfect silence, imperfect like everything in their life, and that too is beautiful in a way.

 _All I wanted was to go buy wheat_ , he thinks with a smile. And somehow he ended up with so much more.

And then in the distance...

And then on the horizon...

Cecil stirs but doesn't sit up yet. “Good morning, fellow rebel,” he announces.

“Good morning.” Carlos smiles at him, kisses him lightly on his forehead. “Time to break the law.”

In the distance, on the horizon, there is a town.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cecil and Carlos reach a town, and reach an understanding that not everywhere is the same as Night Vale, in both good ways and bad. Also, a news report on the pawnshop of Jackie Fierro, some complaints from Station Management, and an update on Intern Lu.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm about to leave for a week's vacation, so please leave me lots of comments for when I get back. :) 
> 
> Also, as of yesterday I am officially caught up on "Welcome to Night Vale", so the ban on spoilers has been lifted! I listened to the whole thing in a month. Help me.

_Tamika: Guys, station management is acting really weird, and I mean_ really _weird. They're writhing around behind their door and... is that hissing? I think that's hissing. I don't understand what's happening. I know Cecil talked about station management on his show once, but he didn't tell me what to do if they seemed angry. I'll stop recapping my battle with the librarians. Maybe they don't like that since it isn't news. Hang on, the new intern is bringing me the news report. I don't know what happened to the old one. Yesterday a woman with short hair went home in an intern shirt, and today a man with long hair showed up wearing it and the woman is nowhere to be seen. The new intern's name is Lu, by the way. He likes books._

_So: news. A man in a tan jacket, holding a deerskin suitcase, was seen at the Moonlite All-Nite Diner yesterday buying a cup of coffee. That's not the news. The news is that the man in the tan jacket holding a deerskin suitcase left his full cup of coffee on the table and left the diner. Trish Hidge picked it up and took it to the pawn shop, where she pawned it to Jackie Fierro for eleven dollars. It's currently on sale under the label “coffee touched by a faceless man”. I tried to tell Jackie that this is not a metaphor that works. He has a face, we just don't remember what it looks like. But she didn't listen._

_On sale next to the “coffee touched by a faceless man” is a cup of “coffee touched by a faceless woman”. Jackie got this a few minutes after the first cup, though she's not quite sure who pawned it._

  


Bread.

There is bread.

There is a lot of bread and it isn't gluten free.

Cecil usually makes Carlos do all of their shopping, so he is a little out of touch with grocery stores. Apparently it is poor ettiquette to approach a cashier and say, “Hey, give me all of your wheat and wheat by-products!” in an aggressive manner. The other approach he can think of : “Hi! Where is your wheat, and where, time and space-wise, are we?” doesn't work either.

“I'm sorry,” says Carlos to the frazzled cashier. “What aisle is bread in, please?”

“Fourteen.”

“Thank you so much.” Carlos grabs Cecil's hand and drags him away from where he is investigating one of the security cameras. Cecil follows, noting that there are more cameras above every aisle and behind every register. The vague yet menacing government agency has this place on lockdown.

“Okay, I'm not sure if you know this,” says Carlos when Cecil points it out to him, “But outside of Night Vale, people don't talk about vague yet menacing government agencies. People who believe in them aren't trusted.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, and there's not, say, brown stone spires, or floating cats, or a glow cloud -”

“All hail,” says Cecil pointedly.

“-all hail, right – that drops dead animals. And we're just here to get bread and then go back home. We don't want to stand out.”

“Why not?” asks Cecil. Carlos looks away from him. He's trying to make a point, Cecil can tell, but sometimes it's difficult for Carlos to articulate his points without scientific terms. Cecil watches him patiently.

“What I'm trying to say,” says Carlos after a moment, “is that things are different out here. We are different. We already stand out.”

“Well, of course,” Cecil replies. “But that doesn't mean that out here is bad, Carlos. Different things can be good.”

“Sometimes,” says Carlos. “But some things out here are... some things are better in Night Vale. Better than here.”

Cecil follows his gaze to see a woman staring at their clasped hands. He isn't sure why. She must be admiring his rings, how the colors clash so well together. As outfits go, he is proud of this one. Or maybe she is observing how attractive Carlos is, and maybe she is jealous. Cecil narrows his eyes at her. Carlos is _his_ , thank you very much.

“Keep moving,” says Carlos quietly, in a voice that sounds almost afraid. No, not afraid. Concerned. Cecil shrugs and follows him further along the aisles.

It comes as a minor shock to see all of the bread stocked along the wall of aisle fourteen. Back home, the local Ralph's has bread in aisle twelve. Aisle fourteen was colonized by a conquering army in the future blood space war, and no one knows when they'll come to take it over, so it's blocked off by steel walls.

A part of him is expecting a secret police officer to jump out from behind one of the displays, announcce that they were hiding in the trunk the whole time, and arrest both Cecil and Carlos on the spot. But no officer emerges. Only now does the thought cross Cecil's mind that they could have just gone to the wheat speakeasy under the floor of Big Rico's. But he decides that a road trip out to wherever it is they are now was more fun anyway.

They load up the shopping cart with all the plastic-encased combinations of wheat, carbohydrates, and screaming fungi (Carlos calls it yeast) that they want. Carlos takes long looks at the ingredients lists and prices. Cecil just grabs whatever is most aesthetically pleasing. People will not stop staring at them and it's starting to bother him. Like, yes, he understands that no one has ever seen someone as beautiful as Carlos before, and that they probably never will again. But it should be fairly obvious that he is taken. Maybe here hand-holding isn't a custom for couples. As Carlos himself said, things are different out here.

“Carlos,” Cecil says. Carlos turns to look at him with a bag of bagels in his free hand and a smile on his face. Cecil brushes back a piece of his perfect hair and kisses him softly. There, that should show them.

When he pulls back, Carlos glances over Cecil's shoulder, like he's concerned. No, not concerned. Nervous. Cecil studies him.

“Love, are you okay?”

“Yeah. Yeah.” Carlos smiles again with his perfect teeth and holds up the bagels. “Plain or blueberry?”

“Blueberries aren't real, Carlos. I told you that already.”

“It says blueberry right on the -”

“Shhhhh.”

“Okay, so plain, then?”

“Yes.”

Carlos drops the bagels into the cart and casually takes it from Cecil, steering towards the middle of the aisle before Cecil can put more overpriced and unneeded things into it. “Great.”

He does wonder where they are. What town, in what state? A part of him expected that they would leave Night Vale only to end up right back where they started. There were other cars on the freeway leading out of the town, but most of them were idling by the “Thank you for visiting historic Night Vale” sign, and had waved as their car went past. So he got the sense that they were the only ones actually leaving.

 _Night Vale is a place that is difficult to leave,_ he thinks. But they did, somehow. But shouldn't they have encountered a town earlier than this one? A day's worth of driving through nothing – no highways, no gas stations, no rest stops, no towns – nothing but empty road and patches of sand. He makes a mental note to look at a map. He could just ask one of the many people staring at them, or one of the few people not, but asking “Hey, where are we?” might seem strange.

“Are you paying or am I paying?” asks Cecil, who still doesn't understand the concept of joint bank accounts even after two months having one. “Because I just realized, I only brought amber amulets, and I don't really want to have to break such a high denomination.”

“It's okay, I'll just use my credit card.”

“Oh, oh right. Do you think they take that here?”

“They take that _everywhere **.**_ Don't worry about it.”

Cecil shrugs. And then because he's so adorable and the aisle is empty and gravity seems to be pulling them towards each other, Carlos kisses him, once, quickly.

“I love you.”

“I love you too.”

Carlos turns his gaze to the cart full of wheat by-products. “Do you think we have enough?”

Cecil grabs one more bag of bagels. “Now we do. Hang on, I think I left my knife for blood offerings to the cashier in the car-”

“They don't do that here.” Half amused and half exasperated, Carlos drags his boyfriend to the checkout.

They pay and leave triumphantly into the sunlight, which is almost blinding in brilliance. It glints, many-faceted, from the heat-wavy blacktop around them, and from the cars in colorful rows that throw the light into their eyes and glimmer with patches of iradescence. Half blind and carrying what their hometown would consider illegal contraband, they fall through the doors and into Carlos' car, which seems to have decided it no longer wants to be a car and now wants to be a sauna. It is 100 degrees inside, easy. Cecil turns on the AC and rips open a bag.

“Bread,” he says, tossing a piece to Carlos. “How long has it been since I have had real bread?” He studies it warily. “Are you one hundred percent sure this isn't going to turn into a snake while I eat it?”

“I'm sure,” says Carlos, who is already eating it.

“Good.”

Carlos looks out the windshield and notices that there are a few people pointing at them, and a tall man who looks angry. He swallows, partly in nervousness and partly because his mouth is full of illegal wheat. He had hoped they could just get in and out of the store without any trouble.

“Baby, I'm gonna start driving, okay?”

Cecil nods. He pulls out as the tall man starts moving in their direction and floors it.

 

_Tamika: Station Management is really mad now, guys. I'm actually kind of scared. They're writhing around behind their door and shrieking. What did I do wrong? I read the news report Lu brought me and everything. Wait, Lu has another news report. Let's read that._

_City Council has issued a joint statement about the dead animals the Glow Cloud (all hail) started dropping again. This joint statement was issued with Diane Crayton, who is on the PTA with the Glow Cloud (all hail again). She says that the Glow Cloud is upset because funding was directed away from the class its child is in and towards the repair of the elementary school gym. The change is due to some needed repairs, blah blah blah overspending on the class, blah blah blah dead lions in the street. Okay, news over._

_People of Night Vale, DO NOT be cowed by the heavenly entity that is the Glow Cloud (all give praise). While we hail the Glow Cloud, and while we acknowledge its power, we do not let it lord over us and prey upon our fear. If you give it your fear it has won. Before it is worthy of our praise, it is a citizen of our town, and we are worth of its friendship. To the people of this town I say: if a dead lion falls on your home, react with strength, not fear! To the Glow Cloud, I say: all give praise, and did your child's class even need that money anyway?_

_Also, to the family of Intern Lu, I say: I'm sorry. Because he just went into Station Management's office and I think they're eating him._


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After their main employee's delay in the desert road outside of Night Vale, Station Management comes for the soul of Tamika Flynn. Cecil and Carlos return home and dive straight into battle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So quick side note: if all of the kissing scenes are terribly written, that is because I have never kissed or been kissed before, so I'm going on intuition and the large amount of television and reading that I consume. *shrugs*

A part of Cecil think that it's a waste to have driven out all that way just to turn around and head right back. But the other part of him is concerned about why all these people are staring at them. Some of the stares seem unfriendly, and so that part of him, the concerned part, wants to head back to his friendly desert community. He's driving now, with Carlos sitting in the passenger seat gazing out the window again. He hasn't talked much (though, neither of them has talked much, since they've been devouring wheat by-products). But in the silence, alone with his thoughts, a nagging worry nibbles at a corner of Cecil's mind as he nibbles at the corner of a pastry. 

"Baby?" he says finally, tentative. "Can I ask you something?" 

Carlos looks over at him with his chocolate brown eyes and smiles. "Yes?"

"Do you know why all those people kept staring at us?" 

Carlos doesn't answer at first. His lips quirk slightly downwards, and he gazes ahead in thought. His thumb runs absently along the curve of Cecil's palm, the one not guiding the wheel. 

Cecil is not stupid. He understands that not everywhere is like Night Vale, that things are different and that difference occurs in ways that are fascinating and terrifying, layered in complex webs of alike and apart. And he knows that he is different from many people, in a way that is beautiful and unchangeable and  _good_ , and it brought him to Carlos. But in Night Vale, a place that is fascinating and terrifying, a place that is beautiful and good, no one minded those differences, the ones that he shares with the person who also shares his life. No one cared either way. What he can't understand is why anyone would. 

He thinks through all of this, watching Carlos and the road at intervals.  Eventually Carlos says, "I don't know." 

Cecil thinks he does know, that maybe he himself knows even if he doesn't understand it, but that neither of them wants to give voice to it. The answers hang heavy in the space between them. Space that Carlos leans across to turn Cecil's face to his. 

Cecil manages to maneuver the car to the side of the road without breaking contact, then leans fully into the kiss, letting all of the excitement and confusion this trip had instilled in him melt away. In this shared moment, this intertwining of time and space, the rest of the world's existence has ceased. This is the world for him, this moment, this time, this universe. Anything outside of them is inconsequential and diminished. 

In the museum of forbidden technologies, there is a mirror covered with a cloth, much like the mirror in Cecil's home. When he asked what it was for, the curator replied that the mirror, if uncovered, would show a being capable of pausing or altering time. 

"But it would just show whoever looks at it," he had said, (not that he ever looked into mirrors anyway.)

"Yes," she had replied. Then he hadn't understood. Now he does. 

They break apart smiling, and beautiful Carlos with his perfect hair strokes a piece of Cecil's imperfect hair. 

"I hypothesize," he says, "that they are jealous."

"Oh?" says Cecil. 

"The people back there," he says. "The people at the store. They are jealous of me because I have the most handsome boyfriend in the world." 

Cecil frowns a little, realizing that he can't remember what he looks like. When he drives, the mirror is carefully angled to show only the road. Occasionally, a flash of his eyes or the top of his head moves across the pane of glass as he glances up, but that is all. At home and at the station his mirrors are covered and the cover never comes off in his presence. Ever. 

It's disconcerting, and it disrupts the moment that they've created. But then Carlos kisses his forehead, pulling him back to this, out of his own head. 

"Don't even think about them," he says. "I mean, we just committed an illegal activity together! That's a big step in our relationship!" 

"And we left Night Vale," Cecil observes. "I can't think of any couples I know who have done that and come back alive. Oh no."

He raps quickly on the wood panelling on the side of the seat. Carlos grins. 

"Thank you for coming out here with me," he says. 

"Thank _you_ for staying with me," says Cecil. 

"Love, I'd never want to be with anyone else." 

He gets another kiss for that one. 

They break apart and Cecil goes back to driving, with Carlos' head on his shoulder and a piece of bread dangling from his fingertips. All is peaceful, almost silent, but for the treads of the car against the pavement. The desert rushes past, rapid outside the window. Almost too rapid -

The radio bursts to life suddenly, even though neither of them has touched it. Carlos stiffens, and Cecil, after recovering from an unintentional swerve, rubs his hand reassuringly. 

"I'm so sorry," he says. 

"It's fine," says Carlos, breathing a little fast still. "Wait a second -"

The voice on the radio is not the voice of the droning man who is clearly not a trained radio professional. The voice on the radio is the voice of teenage militia leader Tamika Flynn. 

 

_Tamika: Guys, GUYS! OKAY, I NEED WHOEVER IS LISTENING TO RISE UP. MILITIA, I WON'T BE THERE TO LEAD YOU, BUT THE LEADERSHIP FALLS TO MY SECOND IN COMMAND, ROGER HARLAND, OKAY?!_

_Okay, so I am hiding in the booth. I have locked all of the doors and I have a heavy copy of Victor Hugo's "Les Miserables" in hand to protect myself with and I am prepared to fight._

_Long story short... the station management is angry. They are very angry. I'm thinking they might come out of their office. People of Night Vale, do not fear for me. If the station management leaves into the world outside of this booth, we must rise up! And fight against them! The evil concealed behind that door is great, but the power of the people to overcome evil is greater. I believe in you, Night Vale. I believe in the strength of the people. And I believe in myself. In my own strength, to defeat whatever comes out of that door._

_Oh my - um, there's an envelope pushed out from beneath the door. An envelope just emerged and I don't know if I -_

_The envelope is floating. It is floating towards my barricade in this booth. What's happening? I've never seen anything like this before. This is like witchcraft. I - whoever is listening, the station management is apparently able to levitate objects. It's floating up to the barricade and now it is sliding through the two panels of glass. I am tearing it open._

**_[ripping noise]_ **

_Listeners, the letter within the envelope reads: "Miss Flynn, We apologize for the mistakes of our chief employee. Cecil has exceeded his allotted vacation time and all employees are required to leave collateral. Cecil signed for a pint of his blood to be collected if he did not fulfill his obligations to return. But as he is not here, we cannot collect on this collateral, and due to obscure laws have instead opted to take_ **_the life of intern Lu, and your life,_ ** _as payment for his exceeding the time_ _. The collateral will be collected at -" It says at five o'clock on Thursday! But it's two on Thursday now! Listeners, I think I may have to run for it. I will overcome any obstacles and leave the station to rally my militia. Wait, I should read the rest of the letter. ...Oh. It says, "Please do not attempt to escape. All doors to the station have been barricaded. You are welcome to granola bars in the intern break room."_

 _Listeners, I am currently debating the ways that I could kill Cecil Palmer if I ever saw him again. I am appalled that he wasn't aware of the law that permits station management to take his replacement's life as collateral. I'm_ certain _that must have been in the terms and conditions of his contract. The idea that anyone, even Cecil, would turn down such a fascinating reading experience is beyond comprehension to me._

 _Ohh, that man will be sorry that he_ ever _dared to cross me. I will burn him to the ground. I will destroy everything that he loves. How will I do that, you ask, Night Vale? I will strap him into a chair and I will make him listen to the audiobook of Christopher Paolini's_ Eragon _. I will kidnap Carlos and throw him into a library while Cecil watches. I will surround their house with my militia day and night chanting battle plans as denoted in a biography of the Crusades._

_At least, I would if I ever saw Cecil again. But currently, it does not seem like I will._

_It does not seem like I will be seeing..._ anyone _again._

 _Night Vale, I urge you to fight for me! Fight for your favorite book lover! Rise up until the streets are flooded with the shouts of the angry and glistening; with pitchforks, with gilded pages of Leigh Bardugo's_ "Six of Crows", _and with the fiery eyes of the masses! We can rebel and defeat this evil! Do this for me!_

**_[brief audio clip of a screeching cat]_ **

_Listeners, wait. My phone just went off - it's a text from Cecil! It says: "Just outside the city limits" - Cecil is back in Night Vale! And he is on his way here! Listeners, if he gets here in time, I think that maybe he will be able to pacify station management and give them the collateral he promised instead of allowing them to claim my life as they have already claimed the life of Intern Lu... Oh, Lu, he was so nice and now he is dead. Well, that's just how it goes for interns here._

_Wait, it's now three thirty. I cannot_ believe _that time is being weird right when I so desperately need it._

_Listeners, I think that we can hold off on the rebellion for today, though to the members of my militia tuning in, I advise you to remain alert, as always._

_But Cecil, if you can hear me, please hurry..._

"What kind of management collects lives and blood as collateral?" asks Carlos, gritting his teeth. 

"Mine, now can you just jab the needle into my arm?" 

Carlos has Cecil's right arm across his lap, and blood-collecting equipment on the dashboard. Like most Night Vale residents, they keep that handy in the glove compartment in case they don't make it home in time for the scheduled bloodstone circle offering. A small bloodstone hangs from the rearview mirror. 

Carlos is a scientist. Scientists deal with blood all the time. Scientists put a single drop of blood into a petri dish and look at it under a microscope while saying "hmm" and writing numbers down onto clipboards. So this shouldn't be difficult. But the car is going so fast that this _is_ difficult. And it is such a bizarre scenario, him sitting here with illegal contraband in the back seat and his boyfriend asking him to draw his blood so that they can save a militia ringleader - _only in Night Vale_ , he thinks, taking a deep breath before pressing the needle into the crook of Cecil's arm. 

Cecil flinches slightly but doesn't say anything. They are definitely over the speed limit. Carlos hopes they don't get pulled over. If they do, and the Sheriff's Secret Police find all of these wheat by-products in their car, they are both in a world of trouble. Luckily, there aren't many other cars on the road right now. 

Tamika sounds panicked on the radio, which is unusual for her. Her voice is usually cool and collected, or fiery with her passion for books or rebellion, or books and rebellion. Carlos looks over at Cecil, who has his eyes narrowed slightly, staring down the road like a foe to conquer. 

"How much blood do we need?" 

"A pint." 

"A  _pint?_ "

Cecil's eyes flick briefly off of the road, and he flashes a grin. "What were you saying earlier about this trip strengthening our relationship?" 

"Please don't tell me that you're enjoying this." 

Cecil laughs and Carlos loves him even more. 

That poor girl sounds beside herself. That, at the very least, has to be fixed. 

 

_Tamika: Listeners, I have a stack of books next to my bed - a stack I never finished. I'm hiding under the bathroom sink with Cecil's mic, hoping that station management will not come for me here. I have ripped the stalls off of their hinges and used them to barricade the door. The cat floating above the sink is staring at me - oh, yeah, I'm in the Men's bathroom, because I thought they probably wouldn't look for me here._

_But anyway, there are so many books that I haven't read yet - so many books I will never read, and..._

_Night Vale, I am not afraid to die. I am not afraid of Station Management. I_ can _defeat them. Victor Hugo's_ "Les Miserables"  _is a very, very heavy book. But still I am a little... just a little... apprehensive and WHAT NO I CAN HEAR THEM I CAN HEAR THEM. I THINK THEY'VE COME OUT OF THEIR OFFICE AND - AND -_

_Wait, my phone is ringing. Seriously? Right now?_

_Oh my... hello?_

_Carlos the Scientist: Hi, Tamika!_

_Tamika: CARLOS! WHERE ARE YOU?_

_Carlos: We just passed Oldtown! Don't worry Tamika, we are on our way and you are going to be just fine._

_Tamika: We? Is your boyfriend with you?!_

_Carlos: He is, I am, uh, I am drawing his blood so that we can give it to station management. Here, I'll put you on speaker._

_[ **electronic beep]**_

_Cecil Palmer: Hi, Tamika._

_Tamika: CECIL PALMER! If station management does not kill me, I swear that I WILL KILL YOU._

_Carlos: Please don't. I can't live without him._

_Cecil: Awww, you are the sweetest!_

_Tamika: Don't you two DARE start making out. Hello? Saving my life?_

_Cecil: We will make out whenever we want, thank you. Oh, are we on the air right now? Hello, Night Vale. I am back. Did you miss me?_

_Tamika: CECIL, DRAW YOUR BLOOD AND SAVE MY LIFE._

_Cecil: Listeners, I am currently driving past the Desert Flower Bowling Alley and Arcade Fun Complex, which means I should be at the radio station to save Tamika in no time._

_Carlos: Right. But the problem is that time is weird in Night Vale. It is now three thirty two, but it was three thirty three a minute ago._

_Cecil: Listeners, you can't see it, but Carlos makes this really cute face when he's talking science-y._

_Carlos:_ Stop.  _Anyway, I'm looking at the watch I gave to Cecil, the one that is real, and it says that it is four o'clock. Which means that, Tamika, we still have an hour to save you._

_Tamika: Yeah. But the clock here is now saying four thirty, so you only have half an hour to save me._

_Cecil: Really? The dashboard clock says two in the afternoon now - ow, Carlos, what was that?!_

_Carlos: Sorry baby! I had to take the needle out, since we had collected enough blood._

_Cecil: Oh, okay. But bunny, tell me first next time? We go over this every time we make a bloodstone offering._

_Tamika: Look, as cute as your love life is, I really don't want to hear all of your pet names right now. I am about to die because of you._

_Carlos: Well, scientifically speaking -_

_**[loud shriek]**  
_

_Tamika: Cecil, Cecil, your cat is glaring at me. What does it want? Is it going to attack me, Cecil?!_

_Cecil: Oh, he's just hungry. There should be a scooper and a bag of cat food under the sink with you. If you could just fill the feeder on the -_

_Tamika: I am not feeding your cat, or Station Management will be aware that I'm in here._

_Cecil: How exactly? Wait, Carlos, that's not a full pint._

_Carlos: I know, but listen. Scientifically speaking, a pint is about one eighth of your blood. It's dangerous to draw that much, especially because I am a scientist and not a doctor. So I'll fill the rest with my blood -_

_Cecil: No, it has to be_ mine _, or Station Management won't accept it. Just take the rest, please._

_Carlos: Baby, why do you do these things to yourself?_

_**[distant wailing]**  
_

_Tamika: That was them, that was the station management. I think they're coming out of the office -_

_Carlos: Tamika, just hang on a little longer and do not. leave. the. bathroom. Based on my previous observations of the station, I'm hypothesizing that that is the safest place for you to be right now._

_Cecil: Listeners, my boyfriend is so smart. Also, I'm, um, I'm starting to feel a little woozy - wow, is that really all my blood? Wow. That's a lot of blood._

_Carlos: I won't say I told you so..._

_Cecil: Ugh, I really hate the sight of blood. Um, I'm going to... um, listeners, I'm going to make Carlos drive now, okay?_

**_[tires screeching]_ **

_Tamika: What? WHAT?! YOU HAVE TO HURRY! IT'S FOUR THIRTY!_

_Carlos: It was four thirty two minutes ago, though. Wow! I haven't observed that kind of time trajectory in Night Vale before, or anywhere else. That is so amazing! I wonder if that happens at four thirty every day, or if it is just today. Oh, and don't worry. We're back in the road. Cecil is finishing the bloodwork since I'm driving now. No, sweetie, you have to stop pressing that_ before _you take the needle out. Cecil - Cecil, put the bandage on your arm! No, put the vial down first or you'll spill the blood and we'll have to do this all over again!_

_Cecil: Tamika, maybe you should try asking station management nicely if... ew, a drop of blood fell on my galoshes... Tamika, uh, can you try asking them if... if my boyfriend can deliver collateral for me? Because, uh... well, I..._

_**[thumping noise, male scream]** _

_Carlos: Cecil! Cecil, are you okay?_

_Tamika: What's happening?_

_Carlos: He fainted. Luckily I have managed to catch the vial of blood before it fell and broke. Oh, my sweet Cecil, why do you do these things... Anyway, Tamika, we're right near the station! I can see it from here!_

_**[loud shrieking noise, female scream]** _

_Tamika: THEY'RE OUT! THEY'RE OUT OF THEIR OFFICE! People of Night Vale, I am not afraid! I am terrified! But I will rise up and meet my foe in battle nonetheless. Cecil and Carlos could not save me, so I will save myself. I am putting the mic down now. I am going to step out of this bathroom and fight station management._

_Carlos: What, Tamika, no! Don't do that! Science says that you are safest in the bathroom, and science does not ever ever lie!_

_Tamika: Carlos, I have decided. I cannot just cower here and wait for them to claim me. What kind of example does that set to my militia? To the people listening? If I must die because of your boyfriend's stupidity, I will not die like the many interns that this station claimed before me. I will die fighting. Good night, Night Vale... and goodbye!_

_Carlos: Tamika, no! Tamika? Tamika?!_

_**[static]**_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So you thought you were going to be reading about wheat and wheat by-products.
> 
> (Well that's what I thought too when I started this, but it looks like Fate got the best of us both my dude). 
> 
> I have my laptop so I was able to update on vacation! The trip has been really fun, and I'm sad that tomorrow is my last day. But hey, I'll probably finish this fic in the car ride. In the interest of not making the last chapter as long as the other four combined, I decided to split it into two parts. 
> 
> I honestly thought this thing was going to be like three thousand words. RIP.


End file.
